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A number of researchers drew on the late nineteenth / early twentieth century insights from Thorstein Veblen, the founder of OIE, and explored and developed them to explain the influences of institutions on organisational life (see Moll et al., 2006a for various Veblen’s references). As Burns (2000b) and Moll et al. (2006a) noted, early OIE work, such as Veblen’s, focused the macro level of society and economy. Only much more recently, in particular after Nelson and Winter (1982) and Hodgson (1988), OIE started being applied to the firm-level - in a revival characterised by Ribeiro (2003) and Ribeiro and Scapens (2006) as ‘neo-OIE’.

A key, contemporary theorist behind this renewed stream of OIE research is Anthony Giddens (e.g., Giddens, 1979, 1984, 1987, 1990 and 1991), whose work has been addressed in a vast secondary literature5. Giddens laid down the basis of structuralism, addressing the controversial relationship between structures and agents, i.e., the controversy around structural determination and human agency – the wider

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Examples of such secondary literature are Burns and Scapens (2000), Boland (1996), Busco (2009), Clegg (1989), Macintosh (1994), Macintosh and Scapens (1990), Moilanen (2008), Moore (2007), Quinn (2010), Ribeiro (2003), Scapens (1994), Scapens and Macintosh (1996), Seal (2003), Seal and Herbert (2009) and Whittington (1992). Given that the core theoretical approach of this thesis does not concern Giddens’ original work, but rather the applications and developments within OIE based on Giddens’ work, the ensuing analysis mostly draws upon this secondary literature (cf. the cautionary note of Mizruchi and Fein, 1999 about the usage of secondary literature). The resort to secondary literature also lessens the cumulative challenges of Giddens’ vast and highly abstract work being expressed in a “strangle[d] prose” which makes “meaning opaque” (Clegg et al., 2006, p. 200) and not being easy to summarise (Whittington, 1992).

social theory topic in which the relationship between institutions and individuals’ actions can be situated. There is no attempt here to describe structuration theory in detail, and only its main traits are sketched (the mentioned secondary literature constitutes a good interpretive guide through Giddens’ vast and complex work).

As depicted in table 2.1 (below), Giddens identified three modalities of

structuration, based on three dimensions of structures: structures of signification, of

legitimation and of domination. In turn, structures are conceptualised as rules and

resources, which are linked with the three modalities of structuration. There are two

types of rules: interpretive and normative. Interpretive rules form structures of

signification, by creating meaning; in turn, normative rules form structures of legitimation, producing a morality involving values. Finally, resources – which are

facilitative - can be allocative or authoritative, forming structures of domination which produce power. The following systematisation of Giddens’ three dimensions of structures is a recurrent presence in analyses of Giddens’ work (Table 2.1).

INTERACTION Communication Power Sanction

(MODALITY) Interpretive scheme Facility Norm

STRUCTURE Signification Domination Legitimation

Table 2.1: Structures and modalities of structuration (Source: Giddens, 1979)

Giddens proposed that structures are drawn upon by individuals, as knowledgeable agents, in their social practices and interactions. As such, structures both enable and constrain human agency and hence constitute social practices. This view is the ‘downward causation’ alluded above which, should it be taken in isolation, would

2.1 An introduction to institutional theory and some of its fields 2.1.3 Old Institutional Economics (OIE)

correspond to the deterministic view of the overwhelming influence of structures (including institutions) on social practices.

In spite of this ‘downward causation’, Giddens still attributes a prime importance to self-conscious individuals, socially interacting in a purposeful way. Indeed, Giddens proposed the notion of ‘duality of structure’, considering that structures themselves depend on agents’ repeated drawing upon of those very same rules and resources. This latter influence corresponds to the voluntaristic view of knowledgeable human agencies recurrently producing social practices. This ‘production’ of social practices by human agencies is constitutive of reality. Indeed, human agencies produce systems, defined as regular practices reproduced by human action across time and space. Structures therefore become dependent of agency and its recurrent drawing upon of rules and resources. In Giddens’ view, this ‘upward causation’ should be conceived neither as independent nor as opposite to the ‘downward causation’; instead, both influences should be viewed as interpenetrating and indeed as a unity. Rather than a dualism, these two influences are the basis of the concept of ‘duality of structure’. Giddens’ proposal therefore attempts to “imbricate[] both aspects of production and reproduction” (Clegg, 1989, p. 139).

However, authors such as Clegg (1989) and Ribeiro (2003) noted that Giddens’ approach attributes an unstable ontological status to structures. The very existence of structures depends on knowledgeable agencies drawing upon those structures, orienting their conduct. As noted by Volkoff et al. (2007, p. 834) in Giddens’ view “structure only exists in the moment of instantiation [of agencies’ practices] as traces in the mind. Without an actor, there is no structure”.

Giddens’ work has fuelled highly varied criticisms – indeed, even opposed criticisms. Archer (1995), Ribeiro (2003) and Volkoff et al. (2007) considered that Giddens conflated structure and agency. Clegg (1989) argued that Giddens was excessively subjectivist, privileging the voluntaristic or agentic perspective that agents are capable to define the actions to be carried out, in detriment to the constraining influence of structures (Volkoff et al., 2007 also made this criticism, while also accusing Giddens of conflating structure and agency, as mentioned above). However, such accusations are not universal. Other authors consider that indeed “both agency and structure are essential elements” (Scapens and Macintosh, 1996, p. 689, emphasis in the original) and that therefore “the duality of structure enables researchers to avoid excessive determinism and voluntarism” (Seal and Herbert, 2009, p. 17). Interestingly, Whittington (1992, p. 702) noted even the opposite accusation of a neglect of agency, through a “too easy surrender of human actors to the ontological security of routine”, has been formulated by Willmott (1986a) – an author who tended to structuralism but otherwise kept “loyal to the Giddensian ambition of accommodating both the subjective and the structural”.

Giddens’ theory of structuration was a meta-theory and some authors (Coad and Herbert, 2009; see several authors referenced in their paper) argued that its high levels of abstraction made its deployment in empirical research difficult, even doubtful. However, Giddens’ theory influenced an important stream of OIE-inspired accounting research, largely via the seminal work of Macintosh and Scapens (1990) (see an acknowledgement in Busco, 2009) and subsequent works of both authors (e.g., Macintosh, 1994 and Scapens and Macintosh, 1996). In this interpretation of Giddens (cf. Boland, 1996), structures are abstract templates guiding agents’ behaviour. A strong

2.2 Some contemporary developments in OIE research